How to find the cell address of a value
✓ Verified in LibreOffice 25.8.7.3 ✓ Verified in Google Sheets (2026-08-30)Get "$A$3"-style coordinates of where a value lives — for audits, debugging, or building references.
The formula
| App | Formula | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Excel (desktop) | =ADDRESS(MATCH(D2,A:A,0),1) | MATCH finds the row; ADDRESS formats it. Column 1 = A. |
| Google Sheets | =ADDRESS(MATCH(D2,A:A,0),1) | Identical. |
| LibreOffice Calc | =ADDRESS(MATCH(D2,A:A,0),1) | Identical. |
How it works
MATCH returns the position of "cherry" (row 3) and ADDRESS turns a row/column pair into a reference string: "$A$3". ADDRESS's later arguments control the style — ADDRESS(3,1,4) gives relative "A3". The result is TEXT, not a live reference; to actually pull the value at a computed address, feed it to INDIRECT — though INDEX/MATCH does that more efficiently without the volatile INDIRECT.
Verified, not just documented
We ran =ADDRESS(MATCH(D2,A1:A3,0),1) in LibreOffice 25.8.7.3 (headless, with forced recalculation) and it returned $A$3 — exactly the expected result. We then ran the same formulas in Google Sheets, executed 2026-08-30: a formula-only workbook goes into Google Drive, which converts it to a Sheet and recalculates every formula with Google’s own engine, and comes back out as .xlsx carrying the values Google computed. It returned $A$3 for the worked example, the same value LibreOffice produced. Both engines’ numbers on this page are executed results. The Excel formula follows Microsoft’s official documented syntax — we do not run desktop Excel.
Functions used
ADDRESS · MATCH — see full Excel, Google Sheets & LibreOffice compatibility for each.
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